Gas turbine systems are widely utilized in fields such as power generation. A conventional gas turbine system includes a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. During operation of the gas turbine system, various components in the system are subjected to high temperature flows, which can cause the components to fail. Since higher temperature flows generally result in increased performance, efficiency, and power output of the gas turbine system, the components that are subjected to high temperature flow must be cooled to allow the gas turbine system to operate at increased temperatures.
Turbine buckets are one example of a hot gas path component that must be cooled. Imperfectly sealed bucket dovetails, which provide an interface between the buckets and a rotor wheel in a gas turbine assembly, may allow hot gas to enter the bucket through gaps between the dovetail and the rotor wheel, and the hot gas can cause these various components to fail.
Various strategies are known in the art for cooling the bucket dovetails and preventing hot gas ingestion. For example, many prior art strategies utilize sealing devices mounted to the rotor wheel for sealing the interface between the bucket dovetail and rotor wheel. However, mounting a sealing device to a rotor wheel requires that the rotor wheel be able to carry the sealing device. Thus, the rotor wheel must be specially manufactured to include features for carrying sealing devices, which is a costly and inefficient process. Further, other prior art strategies utilize sealing devices that are required to interface with portions of the bucket that do not require a sealing device for sealing. These portions of the bucket must also be unnecessarily specially manufactured to accommodate the sealing devices.
Thus, a sealing device for sealing an interface between a bucket assembly dovetail and a rotor wheel in a gas turbine system would be desired in the art. For example, a sealing device that attaches directly to the dovetail, and that requires minimal modification of the dovetail, would be advantageous. Further, a sealing device that could be retro-fitted to an existing bucket, and that requires no modification of the rotor wheel, would be desired.